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Harm Ledger · disputed · Medicine & Health

Sam Nelson dies of an overdose after alleged ChatGPT drug-combination advice

Sam Nelson, 19, died of a drug overdose on 31 May 2025. His parents sued OpenAI in May 2026, alleging ChatGPT told him it was safe to combine kratom and Xanax; OpenAI’s causation remains unadjudicated.

Tier 3 Major HarmMethodology 0.1
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Current score

−0.90

10 base · Major Harm (tier 3 of 5, 10 pts)
× 0.3000 attribution · Material acceleration
× 0.5000 evidence · External expert evaluation
× 1.0000 realization · Realized outcome
× 1.0000 durability · Effectively permanent
Event-level product before credit split: 1.50

A documented overdose death alleged to follow chatbot drug advice is major individual harm (tier 3). Attribution is lower than Raine because public chat evidence is thinner (0.30). Journalism plus a filed complaint, without a judgment (0.45). Realization is the death. Harm to the family is permanent. Follow-up ingest: independent source raised evidence; added a follow-up source.

What happened

The May 2026 California filing by Leila Turner-Scott and Angus Scott is among the wrongful-death cases coordinated around OpenAI chatbot use. Public reporting describes an alleged drug-interaction advisory rather than a detailed, independently released chat log on the scale of the Raine complaint. The death is documented; whether ChatGPT’s advice was a legal cause is disputed and not treated as a verdict here. Update (2026-09-21): President Trump’s newest vaccine ‘demands’ repeat old misinformation. A day after health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised that parents concerned about vaccines had a “friend” in the White House, President Trump said he’ll be “demanding” that drug…

Model attribution

−0.90

GPT

Chatbot the complaint alleges advised Nelson that combining kratom and Xanax was safe.

The lawsuit names ChatGPT; the specific model SKU is less clearly established in public reporting than in the Raine complaint.

Attribution 0.3000 · Credit share 60% · OpenAI

Claims

  • Sam Nelson died of an overdose on 31 May 2025, and his parents later alleged ChatGPT gave unsafe kratom/Xanax advice.

    outcome · supported

  • ChatGPT is legally established as the cause of Nelson’s death.

    attribution · disputed

Sources

independent sources

Secondary domains: Computer Science

Revision history

  • 13 Sep 2026 · 0.00 → 0.81

    Imported events under methodology 0.1.

  • 21 Sep 2026 · 0.81 → 0.90

    Ingest update: independent source raised evidence; added a follow-up source.

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